


Indispensable

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s03e01 Manchester Part I, Episode: s03e02 Manchester Part II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-13
Updated: 2005-08-13
Packaged: 2019-05-15 15:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14793024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: "He says he needs me."





	Indispensable

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Indispensable**

**by: Delightfully Eccentric**

**Character(s):** CJ, Toby  
**Rating:** TEEN  
**Disclaimer:** The West Wing characters and histories aren't mine, and are used here for love, not money.  
**Summary:** "He says he needs me."  
**Spoiler:** _Manchester_  


It's their last night in Manchester. There was a time when this place held good associations. There was a time when standing slumped against a red brick wall in the open air, drinking at dusk, just the two of them, would have been relaxed, triumphal. 

It's a humid evening but she catches him shiver. Watching the colours of the sky, it occurs to both that the last time they left work early enough to appreciate a sunset must have been before they *knew*. 

"He says he needs me." 

She punctuates the statement, stabbing the air with her cup. The cider slops inside. It's pilfered from the First Lady's stash, and therefore probably constitutes all kinds of felony, but she has resolved herself that it is not at all unreasonable to be pissed at Abbey for being pissed at her. 

It is, however, rationed: Toby's face is screwed into a well-worn frown at her insistence that they both remain sober. He feels it is unjust. She might have trouble working with a hangover, but he is used to it. 

Besides, alcohol is in order. If the conversation swings the wrong way she might not be working at all. 

It's been a good day. As good as it's gotten since Sagittarius meant something other than her eldest brother's star sign, maybe as good as it gets from now on. 

The President said he was sorry. They believe him, mostly. He went on stage and nobody crucified him. He said he needed her. 

"You think he means it?" 

Toby doesn't know what she wants from him. If she's seeking truth or comfort. 

She doesn't know either. 

He says, "Of course he means it." 

She isn't sure. There was a time when she wouldn't have doubted. 

"I think he's just being sentimental. Or it's a guilt thing. He wants to be forgiven his mistake, so he feels he has to forgive mine." 

*He didn't make a mistake*, neither of them says. *He knew what he was doing*. 

"So what? He's still the President. His pleasure is that you serve him. Do it." 

With that, he straightens up and takes a step. He can see by the droop in her shoulders and the way her fingers run over the brickwork that the conversation isn't over, but his cup is empty and he's through running on empty. 

She watches him go and imagines him having the same view of her back. He'll never forgive her, never forget. 

He returns bearing beer, and she looks away. 

He hands down a bottle; she waves him away. "I - I've had enough, Toby." 

Her face flushes guiltily, or maybe it's a reflection of the red sky. It's not the kind of thing anyone should be saying during these days, even these nights. 

"You have not." 

He sounds a good deal more certain than he has about anything in quite a while. 

She takes the beer. Her cider's not quite finished but she's not very fond of it anyway. She only took it because it wasn't fair that she should be denied it. 

"So what's happening here?" she asks him. "Is this where you try to make me stay? Because I think we know from history how that works out. Or is it maybe just easing your conscience because you know I need to go." 

"This is where I try to stop you making an ass of yourself." 

"You tried to make me stay before. Governor Henson's reelection, 1988." 

He rubs the rough skin on the tip of his thumb against the bottleneck: "That worked well, I thought." 

She grins at him. It reminds him a little of a wax mask from some ancient theatre production. 

"Yeah," she mutters. "Henson. Yeah, that was a real blast." 

"It was until you walked out." 

He didn't mean it to sound like that. Maybe he did. He isn't sure how well he knows himself anymore. He thinks maybe he knows her better. 

Better than she likes, anyway. 

She isn't looking at him anymore. She isn't grinning either. 

"It was a lost cause, Toby." 

"Is that why you want to walk now?" 

Her head snaps up and a sharp breath in draws her shoulders back; she gains inches over the slouch she was positioned in before. She's looking at him now, alright, and her eyes are glittering with a thousand tiny points of fractured ice. 

"No!" 

He wasn't expecting this much of a reaction. It's the most life he's seen in her since she regained the appearance of composure after she took Haiti out on the White House wall. If he stares hard he can still see the outline of a fading bruise on her hand. 

"No." Less certainty this time. She sinks down an inch or two. "No." The voice begins to waver over the syllable. "It - it isn't... is it?" 

For a moment she's really asking and for that moment there's a stark vulnerability in her every atom but within a second moment he witnesses her, with a toss of her hair, banish that face to whichever shoebox of her mind held those memories. 

"No, that's not why." 

An eavesdropper would never believe she ever doubted it. 

"Well?" he says with a trace of impatience. It means *why*? 

They used to talk to each other in full sentences, she remembers. They don't have time anymore. 

"I believed - believe - I can best serve him by... being elsewhere." 

It's an admission that threatens to catch in the throat, and she washes it down with a couple of gulps of beer. 

His silence is an unsubtle attempt to coax more information from her; she doesn't fight it. 

"When he said it, I-" She glances across at him. He's looking back. It isn't terribly reassuring. "I thought he meant it. I wasn't expecting it and when he said that, I believed him. Then I remembered-" 

He nods, and it is comforting. This, at least, he understands. This he shares, as do Sam, Josh, the others. As do, the polls seem to indicate, the American people. Will any of them ever be able to believe a word he says again? 

"He doesn't need me," she finishes. "*You* don't need me." 

He sits up straighter. 

"This White House, I mean." 

"Oh." 

He wonders if he should tell her about the lifeboat he was offered. How to explain? *CJ, the President doesn't care about Haiti. Leo isn't even that pissed about Haiti. He's pissed because you're flunking the test*. 

He doesn't say anything. He kind of wants to see the results of that test. 

The truth is he believes he can cheat on her behalf, push the buttons that will convince her to stay. But he does not want to be proved wrong. 

"He's never needed me. The team's never *needed* me. I did a good job for a while, but someone else could have done it. It would have held together just fine without me." 

"You had woot canal and his presidency practically ended then and there." 

She punches his arm, then uses it to hold herself up. He catches the scent of her warm beery breath when she laughs. 

She loves to laugh, he thinks with a sudden pang. However much this job has stripped away from her, it will only get worse from here. There will be little laughter for the next God only knows how long, if she stays. 

But she must. He feels with the surety as that with which he tossed the lifeboat back to sea. She mustn't catch it. She has to swim with the rest of them, or drown. 

Her laugh is over, but it did her good to realise that she still could. 

"Those were good times, weren't they?" she asks him. "I'm not just kidding myself?" 

"They had their moments." 

He remembers the Josh who believed in his own immortality, the Sam he'd never betrayed, this woman when she still thought the job would get easier with experience. They learned to love each other during those days, all of them together. And as for loving the man they served - well, there was never a question. 

"Yeah," she says quietly and picks at the corner of the label on her bottle. A sign of sexual frustration, his niece knowingly informed him once. He doesn't think her frustration is anything to do with sex. Well, not much. 

He waits, and isn't surprised by, "You'd have done it all without me." 

She catches his expression and shakes her head. "I don't mean, like, 'feel sorry for me'." 

"That's too bad 'cause I was going to start tearing up." 

She doesn't bother smiling or laughing. "I was just saying, you know, statement of fact." 

He's getting impatient. "So, yeah, you're not God, CJ. Get over it." 

"I'll go one better than that. I'm getting out of it." 

"For crying out loud..." 

He steps away from the wall, whirls round, aims a square kick at a cup resting on the ground. The remains of her cider is consumed into the earth. 

She flinches at the sudden movement. 

"Why did you come with me?" he demands. "When I told you we wanted you here, why did you come?" 

"You came to get me." 

It's not an answer. 

"CJ." He is often irritated but he takes it personally when she causes it. 

She holds up her hands. It just about sums up her attitude to the whole situation. 

"You know as well as I do!" 

For the first time since Rosslyn he thinks he might be about to see her cry. The waver passes and she sinks into a squatting position against the wall. 

She continues, "There was no one big reason. I'd just been fired, that left me humiliated. Running for the presidency's a pretty big ego trip." 

A dark sideways glance crosses between them. "You know that." He does. 

The dams are busted now and it keeps spilling out. "I was so fucking bored, I needed something new. A cheap thrill, one I could fool myself was gold." 

"It was," he snaps, even though the edges have been well and truly knocked off his certainty. "It *was*." 

"Then there's the fact that you believed in it so much. I hadn't seen you like that before." The shadows deepen in his face as the sky darkens. She observes. "I bet that's what you were like when you were young." 

"I was never young," he says half-heartedly. 

"A couple of months ago you were young." 

It's cutting close to the bone and he flinches. 

"You think I didn't notice the change?" 

The texture of her voice doesn't exist in nature. It carries more tenderness than he can bear, but at the same time there's flint, and rust, and he can't tell if she's sympathising or accusing, or if she's past caring altogether. If she has the latter in her, the job's changed her more than he would have thought possible. 

"I've seen you through some damn weird moods , you know. I've seen the jaded, I've seen the desperate, the hopeful, the... yearning, that's a word for it. I don't know why I came with you, but I know that when you came you were yearning for it to work. Just this one thing." 

"And it did work. Whatever else you say, the campaign did work." 

*The campaign was a fraud!* 

God, in her head she shouts it from the rooftops. She screeches it until her throat is raw, a punishment for all the lies that have come from it. In her head she knocks on the door of every person who's bought a paper, turned on a news station in the last four years or so and tells them all that she was lying, but she's sorry. He's sorry. 

Toby's hands are clenched into tight fists, white-knuckled, and are trembling slightly. He knows what she's thinking and there can be no forgiveness if she says it, nor mercy. 

She is tempted, for a ephemeral moment when anything seems possible, to end everything that complicates her world and cut herself loose in a single stroke. The stars are starting to show in the sky over Manchester. She picks one at random, a pinprick of light through which to pass to the easier life. 

But it looks lonely out there. 

Her head drops and she studies the gravel between her knees. "I've seen you in love." 

It takes a few seconds for him to get his head back in the conversation. 

"With women, with candidates. I've seen them break your heart." 

Listening to her, he has the uncomfortable sensation of seeing his life flash before his eyes. 

"On the borderline of alcoholism. Clinically depressed. Realising you couldn't change the world. Deciding to try anyway. Giving up." She hesitates after the last one and has a minor coughing fit. His affliction is faint nausea - he puts down his beer. "I've seen you so full of hatred that I was honest-to-God terrified of you." 

He puts a hand over hers but it is cold comfort. 

"You were in one hell of a mood for days before..." 

He would ask how she knows the precise night he found out, but hadn't he always known it must be written all over his face from the moment he heard those words? 

"You think I didn't notice you age ten years overnight?" she asks. 

How ironic, how puzzling that he should be the one who finds his cheeks damp. The beer must be stronger than he thought, that and the night chill in the air. 

Her hand wriggles free from under his and he lets her fingers work their way between his. She is surprisingly warm, wearing only that thin shirt at this time of night. Always with the hot blood. 

"You didn't say anything," he reminds her gruffly. "You didn't *ask*." 

"You wouldn't have told me." 

"I honestly don't know that I wouldn't have." 

"In that case I'm glad I didn't ask. I'm jealous of Sam, jealous, do you believe that? I wish I'd had those extra hours of not knowing." 

If he wanted to think about this he could do it in his hotel room, in a darkness unmarred by starlight. 

"You still haven't given me a proper answer. Why did you come with me, CJ? Why the hell did you come out here?" 

"I don't know. All those things I said before. None of them. Because I was bored in LA. Because I wanted a story to tell at my high school reunion. Because some columnist wrote a piece that I liked on Bartlet. Because you weren't the only one who wanted to make the world a better place. Because, even after all those things I'd seen, I had a sneaking penchant for the messenger." 

He can't quite bring himself to smile at her. He doesn't know if she's using the past tense on purpose. He squeezes their conjoined hands closer together. 

For her part, she has spotted where this dialogue is going and knows what he is waiting for her to say. What he wants her to say. Is this a case of *need*, rather than want or should? Such trouble that word has caused her. And to think that when she was a young woman she pledged that she would never need anyone, anything. 

She caves. 

"Perhaps I came because I believed in him." 

He lets out a breath, as if that settles things. As if that's enough. 

"Nothing's changed," he says. "Nothing substantive. We're all a little paranoid right now, but we can still - we can still believe *in* him, even if we don't always *believe* him." 

"I'm glad you can." 

It sounds sarcastic, but she doesn't mean it that way. Maybe she doesn't mean it at all. She doesn't think it would feel like this if there weren't parts of her that still believed. 

"Your turn to give me an answer," she says, remembering what this is supposed to be about. "Did he mean it?" 

"Does he think he needs you? You think that I know what goes on in his head?" 

She grimaces, shakes her head, thinks that perhaps she did just want him to lie to her. 

"I'll tell you this, though," he offers. "It doesn't matter a damn." 

"What?" 

"Everything that we've been sitting here blowing hot air about tonight. It doesn't matter if we could have won without you in 1998. It doesn't matter if anyone else could have done your job since we took office, not even if they'd done it better. It doesn't matter if that someone else wouldn't have fucked up over Haiti. It doesn't matter if right now someone else could take that podium and be a better press secretary. It doesn't matter what he thinks. It doesn't matter why he wants you to stay. He does want you to stay. He does *need* you to stay." 

She's offended, indignant, not a charity case. He cuts her up before she can start. 

"It's nothing to do with him caring for you or you being part of the team or any of that other stomach-turning Hallmark crap." His own stomach has settled now. 

"Okay then." She's defiant, defiant and hooked. "Tell me the great truth, Toby-wan." 

"It's *politics*." 

They stop, for a while, turning the word around in their heads. 

"We start haemorrhaging staffers, we're dead before we started. Leo knows it and he doesn't know why you don't." 

"I'm a liability," but she's turning. 

"You're the most visible of all of us except *him*. People, for some peculiar reason best known to themselves, like you. They're not going to like a President who uses you to lie for him then cuts you loose for making an honest mistake. And it's not just about the public. You go and morale among the staff nosedives. People go taking nosedives when they're already at rock bottom, noses are going to get broken." 

He sighs, belches and is almost moved to smile at her delicately wrinkled nose. 

"He needs you," he says deliberately, "Because losing you looks bad." 

And maybe this is him lying to her after all - God knows he's created more elaborate constructions in the past - but she makes the conscious decision to believe him. 

"That's all you had to say to me, Toby." 

And she turns, bending into him, and her face is on his neck, and she holds him, for sometimes they are affectionate and they do not really fear to show it. They sway a little, unbalanced and in slow-time to songs they used to know. Songs of victory. 

The embrace doesn't last long - the cold is getting earnest now - and they walk, close but not touching, the short distance back to the hotel. 

They cannot help but dread a little the work there will be to do in the morning. 

End 


End file.
